Wrestling Team Quotes

If Bailey had been born without MD, he wouldn't be Bailey. The Bailey who is smart and sensitive, and seems to understand so many things we don't. You might have looked right past Bailey if he'd grown up healthy, wrestling on his dad's team, acting like every other guy you've ever known. A big part of the reason Bailey is so special is because life has sculpted him into something amazing . . . maybe not on the outside, but on the inside. On the inside, Bailey looks like Michelangelo's David. And when I look at him, and when you look at him, that's what we see.

Before Ethan went all Incredible Hulk on Thayer’s ass, the most exciting thing to happen was a spray-cheese fight some of the morons from the wrestling team got into on the back patio.

At least I’ve got football . It’s been my life since I was seven, but sometimes Henry says I need to spend less time focusing and start “living life like I’m going to hell tomorrow.” But I feel like a normal teenager. Wel , as normal as I can be. I mean, obviously I think Justin Timberlake is a mega-hunk, but I’m also over six feet tal and can launch a footbal fifty yards. Other ways I’m not normal? A girl who hangs with an entire football team must hook up all the time, right? Nope. I’ve never had a boyfriend. Hell , I’ve never even kissed a guy. The closest I’ve ever come to a kiss happened just this past summer, but it was a joke. At a party, one of those cheerleaders suggested we all play a game of seven minutes in heaven, you know, the game where you go into a closet and kiss? Somehow Henry and I got sent into the closet together, and of course we didn’t kiss, but we ended up in a mad thumb-wrestling match. Which turned into a shoving match. Which turned into everyone thinking we’d hooked up in the closet. Yeah, right. He’s like my brother.

Let’s order too much of something just to see where our limits are. Let’s take a chance precisely because it might fail. Let’s take the hard way out. Let’s go to the moon. Fuck it; let’s go to the moon again. Let’s quit our jobs. Let’s work at being better at what we do by fucking up faster, not less. Let’s fuck up really fast. Let’s wrestle sharks, fight monsters, and disagree with the board. Let’s borrow so much money it becomes someone else’s problem. Let’s start a 10-hour drive by announcing “I’m not into you anymore.” Let’s dump everything out of the garage onto the sidewalk and build something really cool in that space. Let’s start out to build a better mousetrap, and halfway there let’s decide to jump on the mice’s team.

Join me for a moment in trying to imagine a life so rich and varied that you cannot remember shooting an actress at a sci-fi convention while wearing a tribble costume and then being wrestled to the ground by a security team.

All those guys on the wrestling team, though - they scare me. And they're so homophobic... well, you can't help wondering about their sexual orientation, I mean they all think I'm gay, but you wouldn't catch me in a pair of tights grabbing some other guys inner thigh.

Mr. Passaro, let me teach you about how medicine works.” He starts out. “One of two things is going to happen. Either the Doctors are going to say I told you so, or they are going to say that Jess was the exception. What you believe will determine who gets to say I told you so to whom.” “Never stop believing.” He begs me. “Doctor, you are on the team”. I say. He smiles.

All right,” she said. “Inductive reasoning. It’s what those so-called detectives on CSI, SVU, LMNOP and all the rest of them call deductive reasoning, which is wrong and they should know better. It’s inductive reasoning, a tool you will use frequently in geometry as well as calculus and trigonometry, assuming you get that far and that certainly won’t be you, Jacquon. Stop messing with that girl’s hair and pay attention. Your grade on that last test was so low I had to write it on the bottom of my shoe.” Mrs. Washington glared at Jacquon until his face melted. She began again: “Inductive reasoning is reasoning to the most likely explanation. It begins with one or more observations, and from those observations we come to a conclusion that seems to make sense. All right. An example: Jacquon was walking home from school and somebody hit him on the head with a brick twenty-five times. Mrs. Washington and her husband, Wendell, are the suspects. Mrs. Washington is five feet three, a hundred and ten pounds, and teaches school. Wendell is six-two, two-fifty, and works at a warehouse. So who would you say is the more likely culprit?” Isaiah and the rest of the class said Wendell. “Why?” Mrs. Washington said. “Because Mrs. Washington may have wanted to hit Jacquon with a brick twenty-five times but she isn’t big or strong enough. Seems reasonable given the facts at hand, but here’s where inductive reasoning can lead you astray. You might not have all the facts. Such as Wendell is an accountant at the warehouse who exercises by getting out of bed in the morning, and before Mrs. Washington was a schoolteacher she was on the wrestling team at San Diego State in the hundred-and-five-to-hundred-and-sixteen-pound weight class and would have won her division if that blond girl from Cal Northridge hadn’t stuck a thumb in her eye. Jacquon, I know your mother and if I tell her about your behavior she will beat you ’til your name is Jesus.” The

Big Cyndi is six-six and on the planetoid side of three hundred pounds, the former intercontinental tag-team wrestling champion with Esperanza, aka Big Chief Mama to Esperanza's Little Pocahontas. Her head was cube shaped and topped with hair spiked to look like the Statue of Liberty on a bad acid trip. She wore more makeup than the cast of Cats, her clothing form-fitted like sausage casing, her scowl the stuff of sumos.

The Mongols loved competitions of all sorts, and they organized debates among rival religions the same way they organized wrestling matches. It began on a specific date with a panel of judges to oversee it. In this case Mongke Khan ordered them to debate before three judges: a Christian, a Muslim, and a Buddhist. A large audience assembled to watch the affair, which began with great seriousness and formality. An official lay down the strict rules by which Mongke wanted the debate to proceed: on pain of death “no one shall dare to speak words of contention.” Rubruck and the other Christians joined together in one team with the Muslims in an effort to refute the Buddhist doctrines. As these men gathered together in all their robes and regalia in the tents on the dusty plains of Mongolia, they were doing something that no other set of scholars or theologians had ever done in history. It is doubtful that representatives of so many types of Christianity had come to a single meeting, and certainly they had not debated, as equals, with representatives of the various Muslim and Buddhist faiths. The religious scholars had to compete on the basis of their beliefs and ideas, using no weapons or the authority of any ruler or army behind them. They could use only words and logic to test the ability of their ideas to persuade. In the initial round, Rubruck faced a Buddhist from North China who began by asking how the world was made and what happened to the soul after death. Rubruck countered that the Buddhist monk was asking the wrong questions; the first issue should be about God from whom all things flow. The umpires awarded the first points to Rubruck. Their debate ranged back and forth over the topics of evil versus good, God’s nature, what happens to the souls of animals, the existence of reincarnation, and whether God had created evil. As they debated, the clerics formed shifting coalitions among the various religions according to the topic. Between each round of wrestling, Mongol athletes would drink fermented mare’s milk; in keeping with that tradition, after each round of the debate, the learned men paused to drink deeply in preparation for the next match. No side seemed to convince the other of anything. Finally, as the effects of the alcohol became stronger, the Christians gave up trying to persuade anyone with logical arguments, and resorted to singing. The Muslims, who did not sing, responded by loudly reciting the Koran in an effort to drown out the Christians, and the Buddhists retreated into silent meditation. At the end of the debate, unable to convert or kill one another, they concluded the way most Mongol celebrations concluded, with everyone simply too drunk to continue.

The Rough Beast snorted. “You don’t get it at all, buddy. It’s not about wrestling. It’s about stories. We’re storytellers.” Caperton studied him. “Somebody at my job just said that.” “It’s true! You have to be able to tell the story to get people on board for anything. A soft drink, a suck sesh, elective surgery, gardening, even your thing--public space? I prefer private space, but that’s cool. Anyway, nobody cares about anything if there isn’t a story attached. Ask the team that wrote the Bible. Ask Vincent Allan Poe.” “But doesn’t it seem kind of creepy?” Caperton said. “All of us just going around calling ourselves storytellers?” The Rough Beast shrugged. “Well, you can be negative. That’s the easy way out.

I was just going to have a discreet “J R” done on my upper arm, but Victor the tattooist wasn’t having any of it. “Which one is she? ‘J’ or ‘R’?” “‘J.’” “And how long have you been seeing this ‘J’ bird, then?” I was frightened by the aggressive masculinity of the parlor—the other customers (who were all firmly wrestling-team muscular, and seemed inexplicably amused to see me), the nude women on the walls, the lurid examples of services offered, most of which were conveniently located on Victor’s forearms, even Victor’s mildly offensive language. “Long enough.” “I’ll fucking be the judge of that, not you.” This struck me as an odd way to do business, but I decided to save this observation for another time. “A couple of months.” “And you’re going to marry her, are you? Or have you knocked her up?” “No. Neither.” “So you’re just going out? You’re not stuck with her?” “Yeah.” “And how did you meet her?” “She used to go out with a friend of mine.” “Did she now. And when did they break up?” “Saturday.” “Saturday.” He laughed like a drain. “I don’t want your mum in here moaning at me. Fuck off out of it.” I fucked off out of it.

As with other childlike traits, human adults remain playful and trusting in a way that looks a lot more like Labradors than adult wolves or chimpanzees. When a grown wolf or a chimp bares its teeth, you’d better run. Humans, even adult humans, are by and large more into chasing balls than establishing dominance. The readiness with which we play with our friends and acquaintances and even strangers is remarkable, even though verbal banter or wordplay tends to gradually displace physical wrestling. When I joke with the hot dog vendor about his pathetic loyalty to the Mets, as evinced by the baseball cap he is wearing, we become very much like two dogs wrestling in a park: My verbal jabs are play-serious, not meant to genuinely wound, and the successful banter establishes an ephemeral but important trust connection in the midst of a busy metropolis. Insult a chimpanzee’s favorite baseball team, on the other hand, and you’re likely to lose an arm. The fact that humans retain into adulthood the complex and sophisticated cognitive machinery required to play, and in fact continue to enjoy playing with others, is a reflection of the profound importance of trust in human affairs.

she feels lucky to have a job, but she is pretty blunt about what it is like to work at Walmart: she hates it. She’s worked at the local Walmart for nine years now, spending long hours on her feet waiting on customers and wrestling heavy merchandise around the store. But that’s not the part that galls her. Last year, management told the employees that they would get a significant raise. While driving to work or sorting laundry, Gina thought about how she could spend that extra money. Do some repairs around the house. Or set aside a few dollars in case of an emergency. Or help her sons, because “that’s what moms do.” And just before drifting off to sleep, she’d think about how she hadn’t had any new clothes in years. Maybe, just maybe. For weeks, she smiled at the notion. She thought about how Walmart was finally going to show some sign of respect for the work she and her coworkers did. She rolled the phrase over in her mind: “significant raise.” She imagined what that might mean. Maybe $2.00 more an hour? Or $2.50? That could add up to $80 a week, even $100. The thought was delicious. Then the day arrived when she received the letter informing her of the raise: 21 cents an hour. A whopping 21 cents. For a grand total of $1.68 a day, $8.40 a week. Gina described holding the letter and looking at it and feeling like it was “a spit in the face.” As she talked about the minuscule raise, her voice filled with anger. Anger, tinged with fear. Walmart could dump all over her, but she knew she would take it. She still needed this job. They could treat her like dirt, and she would still have to show up. And that’s exactly what they did. In 2015, Walmart made $14.69 billion in profits, and Walmart’s investors pocketed $10.4 billion from dividends and share repurchases—and Gina got 21 cents an hour more. This isn’t a story of shared sacrifice. It’s not a story about a company that is struggling to keep its doors open in tough times. This isn’t a small business that can’t afford generous raises. Just the opposite: this is a fabulously wealthy company making big bucks off the Ginas of the world. There are seven members of the Walton family, Walmart’s major shareholders, on the Forbes list of the country’s four hundred richest people, and together these seven Waltons have as much wealth as about 130 million other Americans. Seven people—not enough to fill the lineup of a softball team—and they have more money than 40 percent of our nation’s population put together. Walmart routinely squeezes its workers, not because it has to, but because it can. The idea that when the company does well, the employees do well, too, clearly doesn’t apply to giants like this one. Walmart is the largest employer in the country. More than a million and a half Americans are working to make this corporation among the most profitable in the world. Meanwhile, Gina points out that at her store, “almost all the young people are on food stamps.” And it’s not just her store. Across the country, Walmart pays such low wages that many of its employees rely on food stamps, rent assistance, Medicaid, and a mix of other government benefits, just to stay out of poverty. The

The door opened. We all froze. “Mom, this isn’t what it looks like.” Mom put her hand on her hip. “It looks like a group of boys wrestling on the floor of your bedroom while you watch. Wearing a towel.” “Okay,” I admitted, “it is what it looks like, but it’s not—” “Sexual?” She raised her eyebrows. “Mom!” Luna stuck her head under Mom’s arm and sucked in a breath. “She’s gone from a love triangle to a kinky sex pentagon.” Blake lifted his head. “Vote for Team Blake!” Mom rolled her eyes. “Boys, vacate. Now. Aurora get dressed. And everybody head downstairs. Breakfast is on. I made quiche. There’s plenty for all.” “First edible breakfast in weeks,” Luna said. Blake smacked his lips. “Yum!” Mom checked behind the door. “Ayden’s not here, is he?” I shook my head. “Then there’s no lust factor. Although, your father may not be as easy going as I am. So, gentlemen, get out.”  As she left, Mom dragged Luna away with her. Blake shook off the other boys and stood. “That’s offensive. I’m a very lustful guy.” “And a big blabbermouth.” Logan whacked the back of Blake’s head. “But remember you can’t tell—” “Ayden!” Blake shouted. “Right,” Tristan said, “or —” “No, it’s…” Wide-eyed, Blake jerked his chin toward my door. Our heads swiveled. Ayden filled the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded. “What can’t you tell me?” He arched one eyebrow awaiting a reply. The silence seemed ready to explode. Ayden zeroed in on Blake. “Come on, Weak Link, give it up.” Blake blurted out, “Jayden was in the shower with Aurora!”  I choked. “What!” “You idiot!” Logan thumped Blake repeatedly. “Technically, that’s true.” Jayden said. “But only once.” Ayden’s arms dropped. Along with his jaw. Tristan jumped up and shoved Jayden’s shoulder. “Shut up!” I tugged the towel tighter. “Ayden, that didn’t happen. Exactly. Guys, he already knows the Divinicus thing.” “Oh, good.” Blake was relieved. “Secrets? Not my thing.” “No kidding,” I said. “You told Blake before me?” Ayden said. “Unbelievable.” Blake raised his brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?" I held up my hand. “I didn’t tell anyone.” “Oh, my God! Why are you in a towel?” A & E Kirk (2014-05-26). Drop Dead Demons: The Divinicus Nex Chronicles: Book 2 (Divinicus Nex Chronicles series) (pp. 466-467). A&E Kirk. Kindle Edition.

The door was still open, so I shut it and was returning to my desk when I braked. There was a backpack resting on the other side of my desk chair. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t Missy’s. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Holly’s or the cousin’s. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Huh?” she barked, her head swinging around to me. A quick glance confirmed what I already knew. She was drunk. “Nothing.” She pulled out one of her shirts, but it wasn’t her normal pajama top. She was really drunk. I picked up Shay’s bag and checked the contents to make sure it was his. It was. I saw his planner with his name scrawled at the top, so I zipped that bag and put it in the back of my closet. No one needed to go through it. I didn’t think Missy would, but I just never knew. Dropping into my chair, I picked up my phone to text Shay as Missy fell to the floor. I looked up to watch. I couldn’t not see this. I was tempted to video it, but I was being nice. For once. As Missy wrestled with her jeans and lifted them over her head to throw into her closet, I texted Shay. Me: You left your bag here. Missy let out a half-gurgled moan and a cry of frustration at the same time. She didn’t stand, instead crawling to the closet. She grabbed another pair of pants. Those weren’t her pajamas, either. As she pulled them on—or tried since her feet kept eluding the pants’ hole—my phone buzzed back. Coleman: Can I pick it up in the morning? I texted back. Me: When? Missy got one leg in. Success. I wanted to thrust my fist in the air for her. My phone buzzed again. Coleman: Early. My playbook is in there. I groaned. Me: When is early? I’m in college, Coleman. Sleeping in is mandatory. Coleman: Nine too early for you? I can come back to get it now. Nine was doable. Me: Let’s do an exchange. You bring me coffee, and I’ll meet you at the parking lot curb with your bag. Coleman: Done. Decaf okay? I glared at my phone. Me: Back to hating you. Coleman: Never stop that. The world’s equilibrium will be fucked up. I have to know what’s right and wrong. Don’t screw with my moral compass, Cute Ass. Oh, no! No way. Me: Third rule of what we don’t talk about. No nicknames unless they reconfirm our mutual dislike for each other. No Cute Ass. His response was immediate. Coleman: Cunt Ass? A second squeak from me. Me: NO! I could almost hear him laughing. Coleman: Relax. I know. Clarke’s Ass. That’s how you are in my phone. The tension left my shoulders. Me: See you in the morning. 9 sharp. Coleman: Night. I put my phone down, but then it buzzed once again. Coleman: Ass. I was struggling to wipe this stupid grin off my face. All was right again. I plugged my phone in, pulled my laptop back toward me, and sent a response to Gage’s email. I’ll sit with you, but only if we’re in the opposing team’s section. He’d be pissed, but that was the only way. I turned the computer off, and by then Missy was climbing up the ladder in a bright pink silk shirt. The buttons were left buttoned, and her pajama bottoms were a pair of corduroy khakis. I was pretty sure she didn’t brush her teeth, but before my head even hit the pillow, she was snoring

When I started sixth grade, the other kids made fun of Brian and me because we were so skinny. They called me spider legs, skeleton girl, pipe cleaner, two-by-four, bony butt, stick woman, bean pole, and giraffe, and they said I could stay dry in the rain by standing under a telephone wire. At lunchtime, when other kids unwrapped their sandwiches or bought their hot meals, Brian and I would get out books and read. Brian told everyone he had to keep his weight down because he wanted to join the wrestling team when he got to high school. I told people that I had forgotten to bring my lunch. No one believed me, so I started hiding in the bathroom during lunch hour. I’d stay in one of the stalls with the door locked and my feet propped up so that no one would recognize my shoes. When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them. I couldn’t get over the way kids tossed out all this perfectly good food: apples, hard-boiled eggs, packages of peanut-butter crackers, sliced pickles, half-pint cartons of milk, cheese sandwiches with just one bite taken out because the kid didn’t like the pimentos in the cheese. I’d return to the stall and polish off my tasty finds. There was, at times, more food in the wastebasket than I could eat. The first time I found extra food—a bologna-and-cheese sandwich—I stuffed it into my purse to take home for Brian. Back in the classroom, I started worrying about how I’d explain to Brian where it came from. I was pretty sure he was rooting through the trash, too, but we never talked about it. As I sat there trying to come up with ways to justify it to Brian, I began smelling the bologna. It seemed to fill the whole room. I became terrified that the other kids could smell it, too, and that they’d turn and see my overstuffed purse, and since they all knew I never ate lunch, they’d figure out that I had pinched it from the trash. As soon as class was over, I ran to the bathroom and shoved the sandwich back in the garbage can.

The victim was last seen in the spillway from Lake Charleston into the Embarras River, which is in Coles County, Illinois. Four wrestling team members decided to slide down the spillway during a flood. Two drowned. One body washed out of the spillway the following day.

Chapter Five Monday. 12:50 PM. The wrestling room. Because of the assembly, classes for the rest of the day were shortened so school could still dismiss on time, which meant that my science class wasn’t going to start until one-o-clock. After I saw that it was ten ‘til, I rushed out of the assembly and headed straight for the wrestling room. It was the first day of training with my new ninja clan, and I was already behind schedule. A few months ago, during the week of the talent show, I stumbled upon a second gymnasium that wasn’t being used. It was the wrestling room. Coach Cooper, the gym teacher (same last name as me, but not related… or is he? Dun dun dunnnnnnn… no, I’m kidding. We’re not related), said that Buchanan School used to have a wrestling team, but cut it from the program because of money issues about ten years back. I asked if it was cool that I used the room for a martial arts club, and he said yeah.

One decision about team composition that early-stage startups often wrestle with is whether to hire for attitude or skill. This is a delicate balance. If founders hire mostly for attitude, their team will be comprised of highly motivated, hardworking, jack-of-all-trade generalists who will shift readily between tasks as circumstances require. Hiring for cultural fit can yield similar results,

If Bailey had been born without MD, he wouldn’t be Bailey. The Bailey who is smart and sensitive, and seems to understand so many things we don’t. You might have looked right past Bailey if he’d grown up healthy, wrestling on his dad’s team, acting like every other guy you’ve ever known. A big part of the reason Bailey is so special is because life has sculpted him into something amazing . . . maybe not on the outside, but on the inside. On the inside, Bailey looks like Michelangelo’s David. And when I look at him, and when you look at him, that’s what we see.

The role of the manager for the monster wrestler (or tag team) is significant: He is an ambassador to the real world. Even when the monsters speak English, as the L.O.D. did, a manager can provide a human element—a plausible answer to the questions like “Does Hawk have a checking account?

A thriving leadership team. Together your team truly leads your church. You establish and carry out vision, set direction, wrestle with thorny issues and come to conclusions, fight for unity, and model gospel-centered and mission-driven community for your staff and congregation.

Ambrose's injured left arm, but Ambrose rammed Regal into the ring post to badly disorientate him. Then, Ambrose ruthlessly kneed Regal's head into an exposed turnbuckle, causing Regal to bleed from the ear; the match was then ruled a no contest. After the match, Regal stared down Ambrose, then applauded him and turned his head to allow Ambrose to hit him with the Knee Trembler. Afterwards, the FCW locker room stormed the ring to separate Ambrose from a fallen Regal while commentators questioned whether Regal would ever be able to wrestle again. Ambrose made his main roster debut on November 18, 2012 at the Survivor Series pay-per-view alongside Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, where they assaulted Ryback during the triple-threat main event for the WWE Championship, leading to CM Punk pinning John Cena to retain his title. The trio declared themselves "The Shield" and vowed to rally against "injustice". They denied working for Punk, but routinely emerged from the crowd to attack Punk's adversaries, including Ryback, The Miz, Kane and Daniel Bryan, who had attempted to save Kane. This led to a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match being set up for the TLC payper-view pitting the three men of the Shield against Ryback and Team Hell No (Kane and Bryan), which Ambrose, Reigns and Rollins won in their debut match. The Shield continued to aid Punk after TLC; during Punk and Ryback's TLC match for the WWE Championship on the January 7 episode of Raw, they attacked Ryback, which resulted in Punk retaining his title. During the Royal Rumble event where the Rock challenged for Punk's WWE Championship, match, a blackout occurred and the Rock was

attacked in the darkness by unknown assailants, directly leading to Punk pinning Rock; the announcers blamed the Shield for the attack. The match was later restarted with Rock winning. The next day on Raw, the Shield attacked and laid out John Cena; Sheamus and Ryback suffered the same fate when they attempted to save Cena. Later in the show, it was revealed through footage played by Vince McMahon that Punk and/or his manager Paul Heyman had been paying the Shield and Brad Maddox to work for them all along. This set up a six-man tag team match at Elimination Chamber, which the Shield won. At WrestleMania 29, The Shield made victims of Randy Orton, Sheamus & Big Show in what was The Show of Shows debut of "The Hounds of Justice." The following night on Raw, The Shield attempted to attack The Undertaker but were stopped by Team Hell No. This set up a six-man tag team match on the April 22 episode of Raw, where The Shield emerged victorious. Four days later on SmackDown, Ambrose made his singles debut against Undertaker but lost via submission, after which the Shield attacked Undertaker and triple-powerbombed him through the announcer's table. On the May 3 episode of SmackDown, Ambrose defeated Kane in a singles match. On May 19 at Extreme Rules, Ambrose defeated Kofi Kingston to win the WWE United States Championship, his first singles title in WWE, while Rollins and Reigns won the WWE Tag Team Championships later that night. Ambrose made his first televised title defense on the following episode of SmackDown, retaining his title when he was disqualified due to the rest of the Shield's interference. Three days later on Raw, Ambrose defeated Kingston again to retain his title. At WWE Payback, Ambrose defeated Kane via

Looking back, I wasn’t ready for coaching as I was immature and unable to lead anyone. I could wrestle hard, and I understood many important aspects of the sport, but I wasn’t too sure about who I was and what I wanted. As a team, we fought for respect. I fought to shrink the empty feeling I carried. I needed to make sense of my life. I stayed for two years, just long enough to create an opportunity that would bless me a year later. Indiana gave me the coaching experience I desperately needed. During the second year at Bloomington, I met my wife, Lynette, and her one-year-old son, Jordan. They changed my life in many ways. She was beautiful and honest. I wasn’t ready for this in my life as my core wasn’t quite strong enough. Jordan, who I eventually adopted, was amazing. He was so smart and made life better.

Coach Dan Gable walked over to where I was sitting and asked who I was. I told him my name, that I would be enrolling in school in the Fall, and would like to walk-on (no athletic scholarship) to his team. I was free for the program, but free is only useful if it has substance and can hold over time. Wrestling as a 150-pounder, Coach Gable didn’t need me because sophomore Doug Streicher had placed fifth in the nation. A homegrown Iowa boy, he’d just earned All-American honors placing fifth in the nation that March. He was a great mat wrestler, with a challenging style of wrestling. I respected him as a team member but also as a tough opponent who I was likely to battle for the starting spot. We both had two years of eligibility remaining. Coach Gable’s next words were, “Okay. Well, you’re not going to get any better sitting there. Why don’t you jump in with the Steiner brothers over there.

Meeting #3:The Monthly Strategic This is the most interesting and in many ways the most important type of meeting any team has. It is also the most fun. It is where executives wrestle with, analyze, debate, and decide upon critical issues (but only a few) that will affect the business in fundamental ways. Monthly Strategic meetings allow executives to dive into a given topic or two without the distractions of deadlines and tactical concerns.

Today, violence against women is rightly abhorred. But we call violence against men entertainment. Think of football, boxing, wrestling; or ice hockey, rodeos, and auto racing. All are games used to sugarcoat violence against men, originally in need of sugarcoating so “our team”—or “our society”—could bribe its best protectors to sacrifice themselves. Yet even today the violence against men in sports is still financed by our public education system; and by public subsidies of the stadiums in which sports teams play. Violence against men is not just called entertainment, it is also called education. We all support it. Every day.

Every company has interesting, difficult issues to wrestle with, and a lack of interest during meetings is a pretty good indication that the team may be avoiding issues because they are uncomfortable with one another. Remember, there is no excuse for having continually boring meetings.

It’s worth keeping Jony Ive’s quote, “new ideas are fragile,” top of mind before a 1:1. This meeting should be a safe place for people to nurture new ideas before they are submitted to the rough-and-tumble of debate. Help them clarify both their thinking about these ideas and their understanding of the people to whom they need to communicate these ideas. The ideas may need to be described in one way for an engineer and another for a salesperson. Here are some questions that you can use to nurture new ideas by pushing people to be clearer: “What do you need to develop that idea further so that it’s ready to discuss with the broader team? How can I help?” “I think you’re on to something, but it’s still not clear to me. Can you try explaining it again?” “Let’s wrestle some more with it, OK?” “I understand what you mean, but I don’t think others will. How can you explain it so it will be easier for them to understand?” “I don’t think ‘so-and-so’ will understand this. Can you explain it again to make it clearer specifically for them?” “Is the problem really that they are too stupid to understand, or is it that you are not explaining it clearly enough?

Did she ask about anyone else?” “Oh, everyone,” Brendan said, rushing on. “Names, friendships, hobbies. She was really interested in our hobbies. When we talked about the teams and stuff, she asked why Rafe and Sam aren’t on any. I said Rafe just moved here, and I don’t know what he’s into.” “And me?” Sam said. “I said you’re antisocial.” “Thanks.” “She asked whether you were good at any of the school’s specialties--singing, track, swimming, wrestling…I said all I know is you like to hit people.” She flipped him the finger. “What? It’s true. Then she asked if they let girls on the boxing team and I said Mr. Barnes tried to get you on it, but you weren’t interested. Then--get this--she starts asking if you’ve got a hate-on for certain people.” Sam looked worried, almost alarmed, but when she saw me watching, she tried to hide it and said, “So what’d you tell her?” “That you’re an equal opportunity hater.

When we talked about the teams and stuff, she asked why Rafe and Sam aren’t on any. I said Rafe just moved here, and I don’t know what he’s into.” “And me?” Sam said. “I said you’re antisocial.” “Thanks.” “She asked whether you were good at any of the school’s specialties--singing, track, swimming, wrestling…I said all I know is you like to hit people.” She flipped him the finger. “What? It’s true.

When we talked about the teams and stuff, she asked why Rafe and Sam aren’t on any. I said Rafe just moved here, and I don’t know what he’s into.” “And me?” Sam said. “I said you’re antisocial.” “Thanks.” “She asked whether you were good at any of the school’s specialties--singing, track, swimming, wrestling…I said all I know is you like to hit people.

Besides his physique, his defining characteristic was that he owned more than 100 pairs of tights and nearly 100 pairs of boots and would color match them to the sports team in whatever city he wrestled in.

The main racial drama of the Berlin Olympics, at the time and in its retelling, was, of course, the victory of Jesse Owens, the black American sprinter and long jumper who won four gold medals and beat the best of the Germans in unequivocal style.1 However, there were also quiet victories for the Jewish athletes who braved the games. Jewish Hungarians alone won six gold medals, including Ibolya Csák in the high jump, two members of the water-polo team, Karoly Karpati in freestyle wrestling, and the fencers Ilona Schacherer-Elek and Endre Kabos. There were also medals for two Austrian Jews, Ellen Preis and Robert Fein, as well as the American and Canadian basketball players, Samuel Balter and Irving Maretzky.

At first there were opinions, but the CEO wanted data and wanted to know what the facts proved. The executive team began to dig into the facts in a summary analysis. Again the CEO dug deeper. He asked the group to go country by country, poring over the data to look for an answer to the questions. As one executive who was present said, “Nobody got away with their own opinions.” The group wrestled with the issue until they finally concluded that they didn’t have enough information yet to make a clear decision, and they identified what additional data they needed. This company’s leader kept the debate going by demanding rigor and sound decision making. According to one of his management team members, Jim Barks-dale, former CEO of Netscape, was well known for saying, “If you don’t have any facts, we’ll just use my opinion.

Whose team are you on?” I ask him.   “I don’t follow you – what do you mean whose team am I on?” he asks.   “I mean, you want your son back and there are forces in this world that want to take him from you. There is a battle going on. Sides have been taken, John’s team is his family and the other team is everything that you don’t want for your son. Walking away is the exact thing that the other side wants. Instead of walking away, you need to fight.”   I add: “Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be and he will become what he should be.

Goss, his wrestling coach, and other experts came up with sensible reforms to end the long-standing practice of extreme weight cutting, then told the Big Ten and the NCAA that Michigan would only wrestle under those rules, and would only wrestle against other teams that abided by them, too. Such a stand might have gotten another program blackballed from the wrestling community. But when it came from the Michigan athletic director, it proved to be the lever needed to reform the sport at every level, with the Big Ten adopting Michigan’s reforms, followed by the NCAA, and the high schools—a sequence of events that Yost, Crisler, or Canham would have readily recognized as Michigan’s influence at its best. Those rules are still in effect today.